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APR 30

10 Key Steps To Great Content Marketing

When we refer to content, we are referring to every communication you have with your customers and prospects. This includes your website, blog articles, social media posts, adverts, emails, letters, videos...you get the idea! This article a...

“You need to create at least a simple spreadsheet in order to keep track of who is doing what, when and for how long, and be able to monitor replies and responses.”

How Much and How Often?

Most marketing teams have a love, hate relationship with their social media platforms, but it is crucial, before you start, to figure out the resource you intend to put behind the campaign and how you can sustain it.

Social media management services are essential if you intend to build a successful campaign which creates engagement with your customers and eventually builds new digital marketing channels.

If you don’t plan your social media activities, then you will become quickly lost and eventually disillusioned with your strategy. Too many marketing teams like the thought of Facebook and Twitter, and other platforms, start with some enthusiasm, get what they perceive as no response, and drop it.

Too many CEOs look at the bottom line and say that it’s an indulgence they cannot afford. And for some companies this might be true. But for the vast majority of companies, a coherent and well implemented social media strategy will deliver big dividends.

Which Platform?

The first question is which social platform suits your particular organisation. Now, this assumes that you have your target audience identified and you have your website humming along nicely. Before you contemplate social media plans, as with any other digital marketing concept, you do need the basics in place.

So, let’s say your ducks are all in a row. Now, which platform should you choose?

Firstly, you need to see each platform as providing a different opportunity to create a dialogue with your existing customers. Then you need to decide whether you want to pay for a presence on the platform (say with Facebook ads), or try it organically (exploiting your content). It is fair to say that paid-for strategies on Facebook, for example, have a mixed press and many companies don’t feel they offer true value. It is wise to try and leverage your content first, before you try advertising.

So, if you wish to exploit your content on the various platforms, you will need to consider which one works the best.

Each has their own merits and reasons for being included within a strategy.

The strategy has to identify the platforms and then has to figure out how much effort is required.

How Much and How Often?

What you need to consider with social media platforms, is that you cannot dip in and out. You need a plan which looks out for at least six months and builds a coherent approach. You need to identify your key performance indicators (KPIs) before you start, so that you can judge the success of the campaign.

So, let’s say you set out your Facebook page to offer a customer response portal. You connect it to your site and place the links on other forms of communication. Within six months, you need to establish a target of people who use the page for the very purpose you decided.

You have the target, but the plan must also include the resources you can place behind the various platforms you intend to exploit. So, you need to decide whether you write a post a day, two posts a week, or one a week for example. You need to identify the person who’s writing the posts, get them to handle replies and ensure that they are following the voice, and tone, you have established is the way to progress.

You need to create at least a simple spreadsheet in order to keep track of who is doing what, when and for how long, and be able to monitor replies and responses.

You also need a tool which allows you to spot what is trending on the various social media platforms and how you can become involved in debates and discussions which are hash-tagged for example.

Successful social media management services are all about planning, planning and more planning.